Speaker 1: Hello there, tonight, let's settle in for a quiet hour
at a village shoemaker's and a sun warm afternoon in
early autumn. It's the kind of small word happily lose
a whole afternoon in a long dark bench under the window,
strips of brown leather, a single boot upside down on
its iron last, and the smell of leather and wax
in the air. Long stripes of amber sun fall across
the worn pine floor, and a black kettle sits cooling
on a small cast iron stove in the corner. And
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free download the links just below this video. Much happens here,
that's the heart of it. Before we begin, take a
moment to settle in. Get comfortable, however that looks for
you tonight. When you're ready, close your eyes, take a slow,
deep breath in through your nose, and the long, slow
breath out one more in and out leather. That is
the first thing, a warm, dry smell, like an old
wallet kept for years in a drawer. The door of
the workshop is propped open with a flat iron weight,
and the smell drifts out into the lane. You step
in slowly. The floor is pine worn, pale down the middle,
and darker at the edges, where the boards are not
so often crossed. A small bell and a curl of
iron hangs above the door. It does not ring, the
door is already open. The bell only sits there, a
little tarnished, catching one stripe of afternoon sun. The lane
outside is quiet. A wagon went down it an hour ago,
and the dust from the wheels has settled long since.
Now there is only the slow movement of warm air
through the open door, and the smell of leather, and
the soft tap of a hammer somewhere further in. You
stand for a moment in the doorway. Sun falls in
a long slant across the floor. It catches on a
thin gauze of dust that hangs in the air. Somewhere
down the lane. A hen calls once, and then quiet.
The room is small, whitewashed walls, low ceiling, two beams overhead,
dark with age, A long wooden bench stands under the
front window, with the light pouring in across it. Along
a back wall, low shelves hold rows of brown and
black shoes, finished half finished, waiting their turn. A leather
apron hangs on a peg by the side door, brown
worn pale at the front, where it has been brushed
against the bench for years. You take another step inside.
The boards give a small creek under your foot. Then
the workshop is warm around you, dry, smelling of leather
and bees wax, and a faint trace of wood smoke
from somewhere out back. A jar of small iron nails
sits at the back of the bench against the windowpane.
The label has been there so long it is hard
to read. It does not really matter what it says.
Beside it, a bus timetable is tacked to the wall,
slightly faded along the top. The air at the doorway
is warmer than the air further in by degree or two.
The sun has been on the threshold all afternoon. A
step further in the cooler air of the workshop meets you,
settled slow, a little farther on into the room. The
wood of the bench is warm, where the sun has
rested on it for hours. The bench is long, made
of one heavy plank of dark wood, polished by years
of forearms. Set down on it. Three drawers run along underneath,
each with a small, worn brass handle. A brown boot
is set out near the middle of the bench. It
is upside down on a metal last, a curved iron
foot shape, with the soule turned up to the light.
The soul is dark with use and slightly cracked at
the front edge. The heel is worn down on one side.
The lace undone hangs loose over the side of the bench.
The other boot of the pair is set neatly beside it,
waiting its turn around the boot. The small tools are
laid out in their places. A short hammer with a
smooth wooden handle, A narrow knife, the blade darkened in
the middle from sharpening. A coil of waxed brown thread.
A shallow tin of brass tacks, the tin itself older
than most things in the room. A small pot, lidded
that probably holds glue. There is a square of leather
to the right of the boot, dark and supple the
size of a folded napkin. Beside it, a piece of
chalk worn down to half its length, A short brass ruler,
a pencil re sharpened so many times it is almost
too short to hold. The sun lights everything equally, the boot,
the leather, the tools, the chalk, All of them sit
in the same warm wash. You move a little closer
to the bench, not too close, just close enough to
see the small dark spot at the toe of the
boot where the leather has scuffed almost through. Some one
walks a great deal in these boots. You can tell
by the way the heel has rounded off. One of
the drawer handles is set on slightly crooked. It was
put back that way once and never quite straightened. It
is the kind of thing a person stops noticing after
a year or so. The tap of the hammer that
you heard from the lane has stopped. There is a
movement at the side door, the one with the apron
on the peg, and a man comes through carrying a
small folded cloth. He is approaching middle age, brown hair
beginning to gray at the temple's sleeves rolled to the elbow,
forearms tanned from working near the open door all summer.
He nods once at you, the small friendly nod of
a man who is used to people stopping in afternoon.
He says just looking, you say, and he nods again
and goes to the bench. He takes the apron from
the peg and ties it on. The strings are long
and faded, and he ties them in a knot at
the front rather than the back, because that is the
way he has always done it. Then he sits down
on the low stool at the bench, in the spot
where the floor has a slight hollow worn into the boards.
For a moment, he does nothing. He looks at the
upside down boot on the last then picks up the
narrow knife and sets it down again. Having decided against
it for now, he takes up the short hammer instead
and turns it idly in his hand. You watch from
where you stand. The sun across the bench lights one
side of his face and leaves the other in soft shadow.
There is a small white scar on the back of
his left hand, an old one. He pays you no
particular attention, You are simply someone in the room. After
a moment, he sets the hammer back in its place
and reaches under the bench for a wooden box. He
sets the box on the bench beside the boot and
opens the lid. Inside are short lengths of new leather
thick and brown and smelling sweet. He takes one out,
turns it in the light to look at the grain,
and lays it across the bench beside the boot. He
has not begun yet, he is only looking. That looking
is most of the work. The dog barks twice, far
off somewhere beyond the green, then quiet again while he
sits and looks at the leather. The rest of the
room is quiet enough that your eyes can wander along
the back wall. The low shelves hold rows of shoes.
They are arranged loosely by what stage they are at,
though you would only notice this after a while. On
the left, three or four pairs that are clearly done, polished,
laced up, pared neatly. In the middle a few singles
with bright new soles, but no laces yet. On the right,
shoes still in pieces, brown uppers without their soles. Two
gray work boots with their tongues turned out. Above the shelves,
a coil of leather hangs on a wooden peg, dark
and rolled tight. Beside it, another coil paler, a long
strip of black hide hangs straight down to the floor,
the bottom edge fraying a little. In the far corner
sits a small cast iron stove. A black kettle sits
atop of it, empty. A short stack of split wood
is piled against the wall beside it. None of it
is needed this afternoon. A wooden chair stands against the
back wall, with a cushion on the seat. The cushion
is brown corduroy, faded in the center. Nobody is sitting
in the chair. It is the chair for customers who
come in to have a fitting and need to take
their shoes off. Today it is empty. There is a
small framed picture on the wall above the chair, a
pencil drawing of a building, a row of shops in
some town with this workshop, you think among them. The
glass over it is a little dusty. It has been
there a long time. A gray cat is asleep on
the second shelf from the bottom, between a pair of
small brown shoes. You did not see her at first.
She is the same brown as the shoes around her,
more or less, and her breath is so slow it
barely shows. The plastic bucket sits under the bench at
the far end, half full of leather scraps. The clock
above the side door is an hour slow. Tom has
known this for years and does not mind. There is
a soft scrape at the bench. He has set the
new leather down and turned back to the boot. He
has decided. He picks up the narrow knife. The blade
is short, no longer than his thumb, and the handle
is wrapped with a turn of brown tape near the base.
He turns the boot so the soul faces him fully
and brings the knife to the front edge. There is
no hurry in the way he begins. He sets the
tip of the knife between the upper of the boot
and the old soul, finds the seam and presses lightly.
The old soul comes away from the leather above it
with a soft, dry sound, like the parting of two
pages stuck together. He works along the edge, one centimeter
at a time, slowly evenly. The blade lifts, finds the seam, presses,
lifts again. The boot stays still on its last. His
left hand holds the upper steady. His right hand moves
in small, careful arcs now and then he stops and looks.
Sometimes he turns the boot a little on the last.
Sometimes he reaches for a small brass tool, narrow as
a key, and slides it between the soul and the
upper to help the parting along, then back to the knife.
The afternoon sun is on his hands. The light catches
the edge of the knife. Each time it moves, a
thin silver flash, gone again at once. The room is
so quiet that you can hear the small sounds of
the work, the soft, dry parting of the old glue,
the little tick of the tool against the brass tacks
that hold the soul, the brush of his sleeve along
the bench outside, a single bird in the hedge across
the lane. He has worked his way half way round
the boot. He stops to flex his fingers, then begins
again from where he left off, around the toe and
down the other side. When the soul at last comes free,
he lifts it away in one piece and sets it
on the bench beside him. It is darker on the
under side than the top, and the heel is worn
into a shallow curve where the man who owns the
boot has put his weight for years. He looks at
the freed soul for a moment, then sets it aside.
He does not throw it out. He puts it in
the wooden box beside the bench. The boot, upside down
on the last, is now bare on its underside. The
rough under leather, pale and dry. He runs his thumb
along the edge to feel for any old tack still
lodged in. He finds one, draws it out with a
small pair of pincers, and drops it into the tin
where the tacks belong. The soft sound of the parting
glue had become a kind of rhythm. Now it has stopped,
and the room is quieter still a little farther on
in the work, the smell of new leather rises. As
Tom takes up the piece he laid out earlier. He
holds it flat against the underside of the boot to
check the size, his thumb at the heel and his
forefinger at the toe. The piece is too large, by
a few centimeters all around. That is how he wants it.
He sets the leather down on the bench, takes up
the worn down chalk, and draws around the boot slowly,
keeping the chalk close against the leather of the upper
so the line will be true. When he has gone
all the way round, he lifts the boot away. There
on the leather is the pale outline of a sole,
the wide curve of the ball of the foot, the
narrowing at the arch, the small rounded heel. He sets
the boot back on its last Then he takes up
the knife again, with the chalk lying in front of him.
He does not cut in one long pass. He cuts
in short, patient strokes, following the chalk around the toe,
first where the curve is greatest, then the long edge
along the outside, then around the heel. The leather curls
a little as he frees the piece. He turns it
as he goes, so the blade always pulls toward him.
The cut edge is clean and pale, slightly damp, looking,
smelling sweetly of turned hide. When the new soul is
fully cut out, he holds it up beside the boot
for a moment, the two of them in the afternoon light.
They match almost. He takes up the knife once more
and shaves a thin sliver from the inside of the
curve of the arch. Then they match exactly. He sets
the new soul down on the bench next to the boot.
Across the room, the cat on the shelf shifts in
her sleep, her tail moving once, then setling again. Outside,
somebody in the lane walks past, slowly, the sound of
footsteps going by the open door, and then gone. Tom
takes up the small lidded pot. He opens it. Inside
is a thick, dark glue, the color of treacle. The
smell sharp but not unpleasant, closer to pine sap than
anything else. He stirs at once with a flat wooden stick.
He brushes a thin layer of glue along the under
leather of the boot, working from the heel forward, then
a thin layer along the upper face of the new soul.
He lays the boot and the new soul side by side,
glued sides up, to let the glue set a little
before they meet. There is no hurry, the glue needs
a few minutes. He rests his hands flat on the
bench and looks out the window at the lane. A
robin lands on the low stone wall opposite, looks once
into the workshop and flies off again. A faint, sweet
smell of warm wax now rises from the bench. The
glue has set the right amount. Tom can tell by
touching it. A fingertip pressed against it leaves no print
and lift. It's a way dry, but the glue is
still tacky. He lifts the boot from its last for
the joining. He sets the new soul on the bench,
glued side up, and presses the boot down onto it. Firmly,
his palm flat against the upper. He holds it there
for some time. The pressing is patient. It is a
slow lean of his weight onto the boot, hands wrapped
around the upper, his head bent low so he can
see the seam come together all the way round. When
he lifts his hands away, the soul is mended. The
new pale edge runs all round the boot almost imperset,
doubly fuller than the upper. That tis correct. The edge
will be trimmed and finished later. He sets the boot
back on the iron. Last now comes the stitching. He
takes up the coil of waxed brown thread. He measures
the length of it against the spread of his arms
twice from hand to shoulder, and cuts it free. He
passes the end through the eye of a curved needle,
draws it through, and pinches the end so it will
not slip. He begins at the heel. The needle goes
through the sole from underneath, comes up through the welt
that runs around the edge of the boot, and turns.
He pulls the thread through firmly, but not hard, and
the stitch lies down flat. Stitch by stitch, he works
around the boot. The needle moves in a small steady
arc down up, pull, down, up pull. The thread makes
a soft creaking sound each time it slides through the
waxed leather, a small dry sound that is very pleasant
in the quiet of the room. He pauses now and
then to wax the thread again, a swift draw of
the line across a small block of beeswax on the bench,
and then resumes. The smell of the wax joins the
smell of the leather and the smell of the glue
in the warm afternoon room. He works round the toe slowly,
where the stitches have to follow a curve, then down
the long inside edge, then up around the heel where
he began the last stitch. He ties off with three
small knots drawn close to the leather, then trimmed with
the knife. He sets the needle back in a small
pincushion that lives on the bench. The thread coil is
wound up and put away. He turns the boot in
his hands once, then again, looking along the line of stitching.
Your hands have come to rest on the bench beside you.
You had not been holding them anywhere in particular. A
footstep comes on to the threshold, and a man's voice says, Afternoon, Tom.
He is an elderly man in a brown jacket, leaning
slightly on a wooden walking stick, white hair, neatly combed,
a flat cap held in his free hand. He does
not come right in. He stays at the door, in
the warm strip of sun that lies across the boards there.
Afternoon mister Hale, Tom says, without looking up from the boot,
just wanted to know if mine were ready Friday? Right
you are? That is all The old man nods wants to.
Tom nods once in the general direction of the workshop,
taps the door, ferring lightly with the head of his stick,
and is gone. The footsteps go off down the lane.
Tom goes back to the boot. The sun has moved
across the floor a little. The long bright stripe that
came in early through the open door has shortened and
bent further toward the window. The bench is still in
full light. The far corner has slipped into a softer
half shadow. The shoes on the shelves there are no
longer quite so distinct. A small breeze comes through the
open door and lifts the corner of a paper on
the bench, a customer's note, probably, and sets it down again.
The cat on the shelf, opens her eyes briefly, looks
at nothing, and closes them. Tom takes up a small file.
He runs it along the edge of the new soul,
where it slightly overhangs the upper evening the edge. Working
from heel to toe and back, the file makes a soft,
fine rasping sound. He does this for some time. The
edge becomes smooth, flush, neat against the welt. He sets
the file down. He takes up a small round piece
of stained wood, a burnishing tool smoothed by years of
steady use, and rubs it firmly along the new soul's edge,
round and round. The leather of the edge arkins and
shines as he works. It is the small finishing motion
that turns a piece of work into a piece of
work that is done. There is the rasp of the file,
then the muffled rub of the burnisher, then a long,
unhurried silence, with nothing in it at all. He sets
the finished boot aside upright on the bench for the
first time. The other boot of the pair has been
waiting all the while at the bench's edge. He brings
it over now, turns it on the last and looks
at the underside. This soul is in a slightly better state,
worn down, yes, but not cracked across the front the
way its partner was even soul. It will need replacing,
since the pair must be replaced together, he sets to
the same work. The knife comes out, finds the seam
parts the old glue. He works around the edge slower now,
perhaps because the afternoon has settled and his shoulders are easy.
The blade lifts, finds parts, lifts again. The room has
the small, steady sound of patient repeated work. When the
soul is free, he sets it in the wooden box
beside the first. The under leather of this boot is
paler than the other, less worn. He brushes a little
dust away with the side of his hand. He cuts
the new soul the same way. The chalk line goes round,
the boot lifts away, The knife follows the line, The
leather curls, The cut edge smells sweet blue. Goes on
the boot and the new soul wait a few minutes.
While they wait, Tom takes a slow breath and looks
at his hands flat on the bench. Brown leather worked
into the skin around the nails, a small old burn
on the side of one thumb. He turns them over
and looks at the palms, then sets them down again.
When the glue's ready, the pressing can begin. He leans
his weight onto the boot, his palms wrapped around the upper,
his head bent low. The soul settles onto the boot evenly.
He holds it for a long count. Now the stitching
down up, pull, down, up, pull, the soft creak of
the waxed thread sliding through leather, the faint draw across
the beeswax block, the small clip of the knife at
the end of the line where the last knots are trimmed.
The two boots stand side by side on the bench.
When he done with the stitching, he runs the file
round the second one too, then the burnisher. The two
edges match. He turns each in the light to see
the line of the new welt all round. He flexes
his fingers, then his shoulders, and lays the curved needle
back in its small pincushion. Tom sets the boots down.
He flexes his fingers again. He lifts the apron away
from his front to let some air in under it,
then lets it fall again. He goes through the side door,
the one with the empty peg on it now and
you hear him in the back room. There is the
small sound of a kettle being lifted, water being poured,
the kettle being set on something, then the soft pop
of a gas ring catching very faint from here. He
comes back a minute later, drying his hands on a
linen cloth. The back room, glimpsed through the open door
behind him is small, a square stone sink, a short
wooden shelf with a brown teapot and two cups, neither
of them matching. A window with a half drawn green blind,
A row of nails along the wall with bits of
leather hanging from them. Beyond you can just see the
corner of a small back garden, green grass, a low
stone wall, an apple tree with one branch leaning down
close to the window. Tom returns to the bench. He
does not pick up the boots yet. He sits and
looks out at the lane through the front window, his
hands flat on the wood. He is waiting for the kettle.
The light through the open door has gone amber, the
white walls have taken on a soft, warm color, and
the shadows have lengthened across the floor. Outside the lane
is the same as it was, only quieter. A few
small birds in the hedge. A cart going by somewhere
at the far end, the sound carrying thinly The hen
from earlier has gone in for the day, wherever she
came from. From the back room comes the faint, thin
whistle of the kettle. Tom gets up without hurry, goes through,
and you hear the kettle taking off the gas, the
warming of the pot. The poor he brings out one
cup full, steaming a little, and sets it on the
corner of the bench, where he will not knock it.
He does not drink it yet, he just lets it sit.
The steam rises slowly from the cup in a thin
column and bends in the warm draft from the open door.
The shelves along the back wall have softened in this
later light. There is a small pair of children's shoes
on the middle shelf, dark red, no bigger than your hand.
They've been there a few days. The label tied to
one of them, paper hand written, has gone a little
curled at the edges. Someone will come and collect them
in the day or two. Beside the children's shoes a
pair of black town shoes, polished, smelling faintly of the
polish from when they were finished. The toll of one
of them is reflecting a small bright square the open
doorway far away in the polish, no larger than a
postage stamp. On the lower shelf, a tall pair of
brown walking boots, the laces in long loose loops over
the tops. The tongues are worn dark where they meet
the laces. A man's boots, used hard but kept clean.
On the upper shelf, an old pair that has been
in for repair so many times the leather has faded,
the shape of the foot inside them has stayed in
the leather. They will be ready by next week. The
gray cat between the shoes is not moved. The pattern
of her fur is exactly the color of the brown
shoes around her. Her one ear, the one toward the room,
twitches now and then in her sleep. A small mousehole,
old long since plastered over and painted over and painted
over again, shows as a faint round shape in the
wall by the floor, near the stove. It has been
a long time since there was a mouse in this workshop.
A single fly has come in at the open door.
It hangs in the air in the warm light for
a moment, then drifts up and out again. A little
farther on the polishing The smell of the polish reaches
you before Tom is fully back at the bench. It
is wax and something else, something almost like turpentine, but milder.
He has taken from a low shelf a small tin
of dark brown polish, a soft cloth, and a stiff brush,
and set them down beside the boots. He opens the tin.
The polish inside is smooth and dark. He dabs the
corner of the cloth into it and begins he works
the polish into the upper of the first boot in
small circles. The leather drinks it in. Where he has worked,
the boot darkens a little and then settles to a
sod oft even brown. He goes round the boot slowly,
then again, then a third time, over the places where
the leather had grown dry. After the cloth, the brush
short brisk strokes one after another. The brush makes a soft,
dry sound on the leather. A faint shine begins to
come up under it. The light from the open door
catches the boot now where before it only fell across it.
He turns the boot, brushes the other side, then the toe,
then back round the heel. He goes over the new
soul's edge once more with the burnisher, to set the shine.
Then he sets the boot down on the bench, upright
on its sole, and turns to the second. The second
goes the same way, the polish, the cloth, the slow
circles the brush, the small dry sound, the shine coming up.
He sets the second boot down beside the first. They
look like a pair again. He picks up the cup
of tea finally and takes a slow sip. The sun
in the lane has dropped behind the row of houses opposite,
and the workshop has gone into the soft even light
that comes just before the lamps would be lit, if
they were going to be lit. He does not like
them to night. He is nearly done. He wipes the
bench with the linen cloth. He puts the knife back
in its place, the hammer in its place, the awl
in its place, the chalk in the small wooden tree.
With the rest of the chalk. He closes the lid
of the glue pot. He coils the unused thread and
lays it in the drawer. The gray cat on the
shelf stretches one paw, then folds it back under herself
and goes on sleeping. He takes off